Monuments of Faith and Power: Yemen’s Religious Architecture

15 September '17 at 6:00 pm to 8:30 pm

Free public lecture with reception and special late access to the ‘Architecture that Fills my Eye’ exhibition currently in the Brunei Gallery concerning Yemen’s architectural cultural heritage and the current threats surrounding it.

Lecture theme: With the advent of Islam, Yemen became an important centre of Islamic learning and architecture. Since the 7th century, succeeding dynasties constructed mosques, madrasas (educational institutions) and mausoleums whose architecture drew on the country’s ancient heritage and on new elements which reveal the impact of the Red Sea and Indian Ocean trade as well as ties with regional powers such as Egypt and India. This lecture will examine the style and iconography of Yemen’s religious architecture in order to show the diversity of designs, techniques and materials that reflect the country’s diverse geography and its rich history. Moreover, it will show the distinctive elements that render this architecture unique in the Islamic World.

Noah Sadek is an independent scholar and historian of Islamic art based in Paris who is a specialist of Yemeni architecture on which she has published several studies.